Looking exclusively at the first quarter period of time, we calculated daily earn and burn rates for each of the campaigns effective March 31st. There were 91 days in 1Q.

These rates have been adjusted based on the number of days the campaign has been operating for the 1st quarter period of time. In addition, we calculated the burn rate for each candidate to the Primary Election date. There are 152 days until the Primary Election from March 31st. This is the amount of money the campaign has left to spend on a daily basis to get to August 30th leaving no money left in the bank.

For this assessment, it should be noted that the FEC shows no 1Q report for Shawn Redd. Also, Wendy Rogers has been in the race for 78 days and Carlyle Begay has only been in the race 22 days.

Here are the numbers:

Campaign

Raised 1Q

Days in 1Q

Earn Rate 1Q

Spent 1Q

Burn Rate 1Q

Earn vs Burn Gap

Cash on Hand 1Q

Days to Primary

Burn Rate to Primary Election

Babeu

$157,734

91

$1,733

$148,157

$1,628

$105

$259,351

152

$1,706

Begay

$39,905

22

$1,814

$513

$23

$1,791

$39,392

152

$259

Bennett

$80,027

91

$879

$55,633

$611

$268

$195,691

152

$1,287

Gowan

$169,390

91

$1,861

$70,978

$780

$1,081

$238,468

152

$1,569

Kiehne

$48,980

91

$538

$113,933

$1,252

-$714

$513,615

152

$3,379

Redd

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

Rogers

$114,209

79

$1,446

$51,809

$656

$790

$100,765

152

$663

As a prior post pointed out, Paul Babeu has the highest burn rate followed by Gary Kiehne. Excluding Begay’s campaign due to the short period of time, both Wendy Rogers and Ken Bennett have the lowest burn rates. [pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]For the entire quarter, Wendy Rogers was the most frugal candidate while Paul Babeu was the biggest spender.[/pullquote]
David Gowan topped the list when it comes to daily earn rate followed by Paul Babeu and Wendy Rogers. Again, we excluded Carlyle Begay given the short amount of time he has been in the race.

Finally, Gary Kiehne has the highest rate available of money to spend heading into the August 30th Primary Election. It should be noted that Kiehne has loaned his campaign the most money out of all the campaigns with $50,000 during the 1st quarter and $678,072 election cycle to date.

Candidates with a larger gap between earn and burn rates this early in a campaign are more likely to be in better financial shape heading into an election. Obviously, candidates should be raising more money then they are spending to avoid draining their resources or running a deficit. Here’s a graph of those rates compared against each other for each of the candidates:

In this graph, Gary Kiehne has an inverted burn to earn gap of -$714. Paul Babeu is barely staying ahead of his burn rate at $105. Ken Bennett may have a lower burn rate but his earn rate is also very low giving him a gap of $268. That leaves David Gowan and Wendy Rogers (we are excluding Begay and Redd) with much healthier gaps. Gowan’s gap amounts to $1,081 and Rogers’ gap amounts to $790.

Note: When/if we receive FEC data for Shawn Redd, we will add this to the analysis.

More revelations how money moves in the political campaign world. Here’s an article by David Levinthal on PublicIntegrity.org about our senior senator that also reveals his plans for 2016.

More than four years after the fact, John McCain the senator is benefiting big time from John McCain the presidential candidate.

That’s because the McCain-Palin Compliance Fund Inc. of a presidential election more than four years distant transferred $819,200 this winter to the Arizona Republican’s U.S. Senate campaign committee, according to a document filed today with the Federal Election Commission.

Cash transfers between established political committees are in general, legal, and McCain for several years after the 2008 election routinely shuttled funds among the several political committees under his watch. They include his 2008 presidential committee, a Senate committee, joint fundraising committees and a leadership political action committee.

But the McCain-Palin Compliance Fund was supposed to raise private dollars to pay for legal and accounting costs associated with McCain complying with presidential campaign finance rules.

It now will ostensibly fuel a Senate re-election bid, which would next come in 2016 for the 76-year-old senator.

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